SHADOW FOUR

Gaga fell sick, it was malaria, the malaria that was to be blamed for every cough and temperature rise and shivering, but Ivie as well as the shadows that his in the corners of her room knew it wasn't malaria. Malaria did not start with unusual sneezing, neither did malaria made a patient's body cold to touch. Ivie knew what it was. She stayed by Gaga's side and attended to her needs, and Gaga would weakly say she would be fine. Then she stopped coming around Gaga, because whenever they were together, the shadow would circle her friend. Then she started going home immediately service ended, she avoided the girls she once said hello to, because the shadows left her room and started following her.

Gaga condition got worse, she was admitted to the hospital, and couldn't make it on Easter Sunday. It was on Easter Sunday Ivie finally told her mother, it was on Easter Sunday Father Chibuike took her to the Bishop to ask the church for the permission to perform an exorcism, it was on Easter Sunday that she saw the shadow, grotesque and airy, around one of the Sisters, it was on Easter Sunday that she, dressed in a floral white dress, with her confirmation name, Esther, pinned to her gown, screamed. Her mother got up, alerted and tried to cover her mouth, but she couldn't stop screaming. She saw the clocks, Jesus on the cross drawn on it, fall, soutanes left priests and priestesses and flew across the chapel, chairs and tables upturned, the pew moved to the tune of the breeze and the church turned a distant hue of black. She felt hands on her, arms around her, she heard voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Chaplets were thrown at her, holy water sprinkled on her and the darkness that surrounded the church started to clear. The clocks hung on their nails, the soutanes were still on the body of the priests and priestesses, chairs and tables were not upturned and the pew didn't move to the tune of any breeze, there was no breeze, it had all been in her head. She looked at the girls whose confirmation she had disrupted, Edosa had 'Naomi' and not 'Dysebel' pinned to her dress, they all looked at her, afraid and curious. She started to cry. Somebody held her shoulder and shook her, it was Father Chibuike, she knew because of the scent he carried, that scent that made her think of a home admist flowers and tall palm trees, their fronds moving to the tune of a calm breeze. He led her into the office and waited until she finished sobbing.

"You picked 'Esther'." Father Chibuike said staring at the name pinned on her dress.

She smiled weakly. "I thought you wanted me to choose 'Esther'?"

His gaze held hers. "I wanted you to choose 'Esther'." He tapped his fingers on the table, started to say something then stopped. He smiled and asked her, "About what happened? Take your time."

"I ruined the confirmation." Ivie said.

Shrugging, Father Chibuike said, "It was getting boring anyway."

"At least you're not denying that I ruined it. I'm also the reason Gaga is sick, she's going to die." She started crying again.

Father Chibuike went around the table and squatted to meet her. He raised her chin and thumbed the tears away, his face close to hers. "You have to calm down. You're very much going to die before Gaga if you keep worrying like that."

"The whole church knows I'm possessed now."

"Self-loathe, or self-pity, or whatever it is you're doing now isn't a very beautiful accessory to put, especially with a name like 'Esther'. You have to calm down, the Bishop is going to come here and you're going to tell him everything."

"Father?" Her voice hitched, her tears drying on realizing the proximity. "You're too close."

"Sorry." Then he smiled and stood up. At the same time, the door opened to the Bishop and other priests and Ivie was grateful they hadn't come a minute earlier, one look at Father Chibuike and she knew he was glad too. But she wondered if it was okay that his being close to her made her heart hitch, or that the thought of being with him, just the both of them, made her happy. Her mother, who she didn't know had come with them, rushed to her, her eyes tear stained. She put her arms around her mother and buried her head in the crook of her neck, knowing that there was no escaping this time. The Bishop was already sitted. She looked at Father Chibuike who stood at the back and he gave her an encouraging smile.

"I can't tell you what happened today without telling you what has been happening," she said before telling them about the night she died. "At first I did not remember that I asked for help, as if something was blocking that memory." And it was true, maybe the spirit wanted to chain her but didn't want her to know why, it was similar to what Father Chibuike had once said during Mass, "To keep a slave enslaved, don't let him know he's a slave," and she had written it the back of her church book, and textbooks, and Bible, and anywhere she could write.

Then she told them about that night with Gaga, that circling. "Now my friend is sick. I should never have taken her to the house." Her mother held her hand and she looked up at her, surprised to see belief glistening from her tears filled eyes.

"They want to take you," she said in Bini, "that night after you and Osazenaga left, I went into your room, I used the spare key. It was there, the same thing that killed your father." Catarrh was running down her mother's nose and a great pity descended upon her, here was a woman who could only speak Bini, had lost a husband and two children and was about to lose another one.

"Tell us what happened today." One of the priests, Father Ikponosa or Father IK as he was being called, asked her.

She told them, stressed on the shadow around the Sister, but she couldn't remember who. "It did not use to follow me around before, it started recently."

"I have a theory for what happened," the Bishop said after she finished. "You were supposed to die, but you were desperate to live. In your desperation, you asked 'anything' for help and the spirit that was supposed to kill you decided to help you, but as with the devil, he gives a fowl and asks for a cow. Now he wants something bigger in return, something bigger than your life."

"Me? My body?"

"Your soul, dear. Both the Lord and the devil is interested in our soul, it's easier to control the body if the soul bends to their will. Now I don't know what conclusion to draw, it's like you cheated death and needs to pay the price."

"God wanted to show me mercy and give me a second chance."

"That's a very beautiful way to put it, but we now have a spirit to fight, and since it's not afraid to step into the church, it must be the spirit of death, because christian or pagan, people must die. Father Chibuike?"

"Yes, Bishop?" Father Chibuike came forward.

"The girl is your disciple right? You perform the deliverance."

"Ah, Bishop," Father IK stirred up, "I'm from here, I understand this thing more than a none indigene."

"Does the spirit of death now responds to a particular tribe?" Ivie asked, annoyed, but hiding it between layers of a smile.

Father IK looked at her, betrayed that she did not take his side. "You want an Igbo man to come and shine in our place? You want him to have the glory."

"I thought God took the glory in things like this?" Ivie whispered.

Father IK, feeling embarrassed turned to Father Chibuike. "I hope you're teaching these young innocent girls the things of the Lord and not how to take their underwear off their legs?"

"So women take their underwear off their legs and not over their heads?" Father Chibuike feighed surprised, if he was offended, he didn't show it.

"Okay, the both of you are in charge of this case, at the end what matters, as the young girl has said, is that the glory goes back to God. But Father Chibuike, I want you to check on that room first, now."

"Yes, Bishop, but I was thinking of visiting the sick friend, she's currently at the hospital."

"Oh, yes. I'll be praying for her."

As Father Chibuike drove to the hospital, Ivie sat quietly, pacified.

"You stood up for me, thank you." Father Chibuike said.

"What he did was not good, somebody had to say something." And she took it upon herself.

"Would you have said something if it was another priest?"

It was a tricky question, one she had no answer to. "I didn't know there was politics in church," she said instead, hoping he would drop the earlier subject.

He did drop it. "There's politics everywhere, Ivie."

She nodded. She had always seen Father IK as a real servant of God, but after today, she respected him less. "But Father, do you really not know that...women...em.. do... take their underwear off their legs?" She looked down, embarrassed. When she heard the crackling sound, she thought she imagined it, but she looked up and sure enough, Father Chibuike was laughing. She felt stupid, of course he knew women took their underwear off their legs.